Finally the Maracanã is back to doing what it does best: hosting the beautiful game. After repeated delays and controversy surrounding a 30-month refurbishment Brazil's iconic stadium celebrated its return to the centre of world sport in style on Sunday with a friendly between the home nation and England that ended in a 2-2 draw. As the first international since the upgrade, attention was inevitably focused as much on the stadium as the match.

First impressions suggest that this will be a fitting home for the rush of sporting mega-events that will be staged here over the next two years, including the World Cup final and the opening and closing ceremonies of the Olympics.

True, there were still areas with scaffolding, cables and bolts jutting out from the concrete but the overall view was impressive. Sitting under Rio's blue skies framed by the new roof was like being beneath a marquee. As night fell, aerial views of the illuminated stadium resembled a giant gas hob.

The crowd – which was 12,000 short of the maximum 78,000 capacity – included a who's who of Brazil football greats, as well as fans who have grown up watching Botafogo, Flamengo, Fluminense and Vasco da Gama play here. This was the first view that most people had of the new-look £345m Maracanã in operation and the response was mostly positive.

"I like it," Zico told the Guardian before the game. "This is our temple. Because it's only used for football, it has a purity as a venue. The Maracanã needed to change. Now the crowd have better visibility and they are closer to the pitch."

For a friendly the atmosphere was vibrant. From the roar at the kick-off and the thunder of the home fans' inflatable beaters to the England chants – and the booed response from the home crowd – the acoustics were superb. If something felt missing, it was probably the samba rhythm of the bateria because Fifa banned all instruments from the ground.

"We were all terribly excited to play in the new Maracanã," said Roy Hodgson. "It was a great honour to be invited. The atmosphere was quite fantastic and the inside of the stadium looked pretty good. I spoke to [Luiz] Felipe Scolari afterwards who told me there will be a lot of improvements to the stadium by the time of the World Cup."

Hodgson also noted that the pitch played slowly. Other dignitaries included Fifa's secretary general, Jérôme Valcke, and senior Brazilian politicians.

"For us the Maracanã is like St Peter's Square in Rome. It's the home of our national religion and part of the national imagination," said the vice-minister for sport, Luis Fernandes. "It means so much to all of us."

But in his role as the government's point man for the World Cup and Olympics, he is also looking forward to what the stadium can do for Brazil's development.

"Football still accounts for a small percentage of the Brazilian economy, so we are trying to scale up sports economic activity," he says. "Brazil wants to consolidate itself as a venue for major events. To do that we have to show we can develop top-notch facilities."

Many remember the stadium in the 1990s, by which time the Maracanã had deteriorated into a crumbling, fetid and dangerous venue, plagued by deadly violence and fatal accidents, including the death of three spectators in a stand collapse in 1992.

Almost everyone agrees the revamp was necessary but the way it has been done has prompted grumbles.

The reopening, initially planned for December, was twice delayed. Last Thursday, a judge ruled that the stadium was not yet ready for a major event. That judgment was overturned but as late as Saturday hard-hatted labourers and mechanical diggers were at work outside the stadium, parts of which still resemble a construction site.

Just as with the move to all-seater stadiums in England in the 1980s, critics have complained that the revamp has overly sanitised the stadium, eroded some of its traditions and pitched it more towards the middle class than the poor.

The cheapest tickets for the game against England were £30, more than 20 times as expensive as a decade ago. For the first time the Maracanã has executive boxes, extensive food franchises, merchandising outlets and clean toilets, and will soon be placed under the management of a private operator.

Marília Garcez, a volunteer steward at the game, said she had mixed feelings. "It's more beautiful but somehow less Brazilian," she said. "I guess it's more international."

Romario, the football star turned feisty congressman, has accused the designers of destroying the best stadium in the world. Many expressed hope that the stadium can lift a national team out of the doldrums. For the past decade, neither Brazil's national side nor their home have been at their best.

Claudio Mothe, a 72-year-old fan, said he could remember the 1950 World Cup final at the Maracanã when Brazil suffered the trauma of defeat by Uruguay. "I was with my father. The deciding goal was scored in that net there," he recalled animatedly pointing to the pitch. "The memories are flooding back."

The biggest crowd in football history, estimated at 205,000, crammed into the terraces. The result left scars that have not been healed by five subsequent World Cup titles. The refrain heard again and again is that the ghosts of 1950 can be exorcised only by a Brazil victory here in the final next year. But with the national team even more of a work in progress than the stadium, that seems a distant prospect.

"In my heart, that is what I want but I know it will be difficult," Mothe says. "Germany, Argentina and Spain are so strong. But perhaps there is a chance. After all we'll be at home."